Northern Ireland Protocol

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This is incredibly important. What we should be focused on is Stormont being up and running. The people of Northern Ireland need and deserve their institutions to be functioning for them. I think it is entirely right that we have vested this power—this sovereignty—in the institution that represents them and do not exercise it on their behalf. Instead our priorities should be getting the institutions back up and running so that sovereignty is restored and the people of Northern Ireland are in control of their destiny.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

We welcome this, and I commend the achievement that helping mitigate the disaster has represented, but can I dig into the Stormont backstop? I am concerned that in fixing one problem, there is a recipe for further instability going forward. If the petition of concern is the model for what the Stormont backstop is going to be and, as we all admit, there are concerns about the petition of concern, what scope is there going to be for the Secretary of State, going forward, to rule on the—let us be blunt—reasonableness of any such petition? Then, when it gets to the joint committee, in what scenario can that joint committee overrule the petition? If the petition is, at either stage, seen to be politically or legally automatic, surely that cements more problems into this than we are solving tonight.

[The Prime Minister]

I just assure the hon. Gentleman that there is a well-defined process for the exercise of the Stormont brake. He is right: there should be, because it is a very serious step. It is a serious and powerful mechanism; it should not be exercised for trivial reasons. It is there to deal with new or amended laws that provide significant and lasting change and impact on the people and communities of Northern Ireland. That is a test that rightly should be met, and there is a defined process for how that has to happen, with consultation that rightly should take place. But ultimately, if that petition of concern mechanism is used—and again, I believe that is the right mechanism to use; it is a Good Friday agreement framework that provides for cross-community safeguards —then the UK Government will have a veto. I believe that as the hon. Gentleman engages with the detail of how that mechanism works, he will see that we have struck the right balance between having something very powerful, but making sure that there is a well-defined and appropriate process leading up to that point.